Coronavirus mythbusters: Falsehoods about the disease also are going viral

Trust in science instead of the internet

ORLANDO, Fla. – Is it a good idea to blast a hairdryer up your nose at full heat to kill the coronavirus? Does drinking hot lemon juice help? At what rate does the virus kill? Short answers: "no," "no" and "no one really knows."

Early on in the outbreak, countless unknowns led to the coined term, “infodemic,” as increasingly wild theories about the virus and do-it-yourself cures circulated in cyberspace, News 6 partner Florida Today reported. Myths abound as the novel coronavirus struck in a politically polarized nation, fueled by social media rumor mills. The myths can cause irrational fear on one extreme, and complacency on the other. Both are dangerous, public health experts warn. So, now more than ever, they urge us to let science lead the way.

“I've seen stories all over Facebook,” said Dr. Michelle Crozier Nash, director of the Health Sciences Collegiate Academy at Lake-Sumter State College and affiliate assistant professor of epidemiology at the USF College of Public Health. “We're having to battle that at the same time as battling the real pandemic."

Here a some of the most common myths doing the rounds:

Myth: It’s like the flu

Among the earliest of analogies, comparisons to the flu emboldened some to take the new virus lightly.

“It just seems like there are just people that don't take it seriously … that think it's no worse than the common cold,” Crozier Nash said.

But this fast-moving new virus is not the flu, doctors warn. It’s a viral pneumonia that spreads like flu and is suspected to potentially pack a mortality rate 10 times or higher than that of most influenza viruses. Scientists don’t know for sure yet, because the disease is so new.

Myth: If you get it, you’re likely to die

While the flu kills 0.1% of those infected, this new virus killed 1.4% of the confirmed, or observable cases in China, mostly older patients. While death rates have been higher in Italy, complacency, lack of ventilators and other issues with the public response were more at play than the virus itself, public health experts say.

Based on the "case" definition requiring a pneumonia diagnosis, the death rate ranges from about 1-2 percent, studies show. But again, those are observed rates. Untold numbers of mild cases unaccounted for would bring death rates much lower, epidemiologists say.

"If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and colleagues wrote in an editorial published Feb. 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%),” Fauci and colleagues wrote, “or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

Regardless of all the uncertainty over the numbers, infectious disease experts have warned for months about the seriousness of COVID-19.

The new virus spreads so quickly that even though the death rate may wind up being low in Florida and nationwide, it could overwhelm hospitals, including Brevard’s, resulting in more deaths due to an inability to get lifesaving care. That’s what’s happening in Italy, which shares similar age demographics with Florida — about 1 in 5 over age 65.

Health professionals say local hospitals have enough ventilators, but some have declined to disclose the numbers. And the size of the surge in cases will determine if that continues to hold true.

Myth: Anyone who wants can get tested

Public officials repeatedly assured anyone needing a coronavirus test can get one.

But many have been turned away amid a global and national shortage of critical supplies to conduct the tests. Overwhelmed labs also threaten to hamstring the response to the pandemic. Some are driving all the way to the Villages in Central Florida, where the University of Florida is conducting drive-through tests.

Myth: It’s sort of like the swine flu

Dr. Yang Yang, associate professor at University of Florida’s department of biostatistics, predicted early on in the outbreak that the new virus could prove much worse than swine flu.

“I’m not that optimistic, because this virus is different,” Yang warned in the early days of the outbreak in Florida. “It has a longer incubation period. The incubation period of this virus can be as long as 20 or 21 days.”

That makes it spread faster and wider.

SARS CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — belongs to the same family of viruses that that cause the common cold but also caused the SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) that began in 2012, which killed 10% and more than 30% of known cases, respectively.

But those two cousin viruses aren’t considered as contagious as the new coronavirus, because it has a longer incubation period, causing people to spread it unknowingly.

Myth: The young are less likely to get infected

Researchers at MedicareAdvantage.com recently published a survey that found half of respondents age 18 to 34 said that people of their age demographic were less likely to contract the virus. More than 48% thought it easier to catch the common flu than COVID-19; more than one in three believed it is no deadlier than the flu; 44% thought its spread will lessen with hotter temperatures or in more humid areas; and 42% believed wearing a face mask would prevent contracting the virus.

But the new virus is proving dangerous for all age groups and climates. The vast majority of deaths are age 60 or older, but many young adults and middle-aged people — a majority of them men — are getting seriously ill, doctors warn. They survive but after prolonged hospitalization, ICU admission and long-term health consequences.

Recent research suggests some glimmer of hope that Florida’s hot, humid weather might somewhat temper incidence of COVID-19. But that remains just a hope, researchers say, with scant scientific proof the new virus will behave seasonally in ways similar to what studies have found with influenza viruses.

Those hopes center mainly on a study, published in March by Chinese researchers, that showed spread of the virus could be slowed in warmer, more humid climates. The researchers found that, "high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of COVID-19, respectively, even after controlling for population density and GDP per capita of cities," the researchers wrote in the paper, published in SSRN, formerly the Social Science Research Network, an international journal.

The closely related SARS-CoV-1 virus that spread in 2003 was contained so quickly that not much data exists about how seasons affected it.

Like influenza viruses, coronaviruses in general tend to cause infections mostly between December and April.

But other recent research by Harvard indicates the new coronavirus is spreading so fast, heat and humidity won't likely make a difference in the number of COVID-19 cases.

"We are hoping ... that we will see that impact of warmer weather on bringing the infection rate down. But you can't guarantee it because this is a brand-new virus," Fauci recently said on CNN.

Crozier Nash heard a similar version of the “the sun will save us” myth recently: “Somebody just said, ‘I'll just sit in the sun.’ I said, ‘you're not a lab tool.’ The human body is much different than a lab tool. Once it (the virus) reaches your mucus membranes, the next steps start happening.”

Don’t try this at home

All the warnings haven't stopped some from trying their own home cures. An Arizona man died in March when he drank aquarium cleaner, because it contained chloroquine phosphate, reportedly thinking it would cure COVID-19. Chloroquine has been touted as a possible cure for COVID-19, although not yet scientifically proven.

Doctors emphasize that there is no cure yet, and treatment is supportive care to help them breathe, such as a ventilator.

Among the medicines being studied are the antiviral medication lopinavir–ritonavir, interferon-1β, remdesivir, chloroquine, and a variety of traditional Chinese medicine products.

The most "Florida-esque" version of the "heat hypothesis" drew national media attention, after Okeechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper suggested during a March 20 county commission meeting that breathing hot air from a hairdryer might be a prevention or cure.

He would later apologize publicly on social media, promising not to offer up anymore suggestions unless tried and proven.

“When people are scared they want to try to be proactive, so they think they're doing the right thing, but it can end up causing more harm to themselves,” Crozier Nash said.

The World Health Organization created a Mythbusters site to dispel so-called miracle cures, debunking among other things, that hot baths or cold weather can kill the virus, emphasizing hand washing instead.

And the Centers for Disease Control maintains a 'key facts" page to dispel myths and rumors.

Myth: The virus lasted 17 days on a cruise ship

Researchers found genetic traces (RNA) of the virus were found on surfaces in cabins of the Diamond Princess cruise-ship as many as 17 days after passengers left, researchers said, but it's unlikely viruses were viable to cause infections.

"That's just the footprint of the virus," Crozier Nash said. "It wouldn't be able to infect you 17 days on."

But a new study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found the virus can be viable in air for up to three hours, on copper up to four hours, on cardboard up to 24 hours, and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel.

Myth: Anything other than hygiene or science will cure

Dr. Kelly Cawcutt, assistant professor, Department of Internal Medicine Associate Medical Director, recently warned on her blog against all the miracle cures sure to proliferate as the pandemic grows.

“Do not fall prey to false hopes," wrote Cawcutt, who specializes in infection control and epidemiology at the Nebraska Medical Center, where the original 15 Americans from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were quarantined. The center also is embarking on the first randomized, controlled clinical trial in the United States to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the antiviral remdesivir in hospitalized adults diagnosed with COVID-19.

“Now more than ever, we need science to drive safety,” Cawcutt said. "I promise you, the global community is racing faster than I have ever experienced, or truly dreamed possible, to answer these question. And we will.”